


Different Wounds, Same Weapon

by ungoodpirate



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Family Drama, M/M, Niall Lynch never died, Other, lynch family - Freeform, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: “Welcome to the Lynch family. Good for you that you can hold your own. It’s not easy being on Dad’s bad side.” Declan paused, brow wrinkled, and snorted. “It’s not easy being on Dad’s good side. Look how he treats Ronan.”---A Pynch and Lynch family AU in which Niall didn't die and Pynch met in college. A family exploration of well meaning but horribly flawed father, an over-accommodating mother, and brothers that care but just don't know how to talk about their goddamn feelings. Plus, the boyfriend whose the catalyst to some change.





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> “I'm not saying you're wrong, Declan," Gansey said. … "But you are not Niall Lynch, and you won't ever be. And you'd get ahead a lot faster if you stopped trying."
> 
> Gansey released Ronan.
> 
> Ronan didn't move, though, and neither did Declan, as if by saying their father's name, Gansey had cast a spell. They wore matching raw expressions. _Different wounds inflicted by the same weapon_.” 
> 
> ― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be freaking out right now.” When Adam said it, he meant it as a moment of levity. That was the usual arrangement afterall, the whole meet the parents type situation. But Ronan was the one with the pallor of someone about to vomit, or turn his car in the direction of a cliff. 

Ronan kept his eyes strict on the road ahead. He was usually one with his car. Like a knight with a sword, it was an extension of his body. Adam didn’t usually see him choked up on the wheel like a senior citizen. 

Adam tipped his temple against the glass of his window. They were at the beginning of winter after a dry autumn after a dryer summer. The trees were bare, the grass was crispy, the leaves were brown. The town itself looked like it was at that same dead end after a long drought: rust and chip painted signs, rust and chip painted cars, rust and chip painted buildings. Mom and Pops and not a logo in sight except the neon Coors signs in the bars they passed. 

“This reminds me of my hometown,” Adam said. Adam knew how the people in his town thought about queers. 

Ronan sucked in his cheeks. “We’re almost there.”

They weren’t going to talk about it, but there were other ways to communicate other than talking. 

They drove further. The town thinned out. The road narrowed. Ronan turned off from a paved road onto a dirt one. Soon, they pulled up a long drive to a white farmhouse. Ronan ground the car to a slow stop; on their third date he had taken Adam out in his car to a vacant lot to drive donuts. 

Adam craned his neck to take in all three stories. “So this is where you grew up…” The trailer he grew up in could’ve probably fit on the deep porch with still room to squeeze by. 

Ronan jerked the clutch into park. “Let’s go.”  

What Adam walked into was a home that was very much the fantasy of his youth. Not the fantasy he held as a young adult which was one of a stainless steel apartment with full length windows over a cityscape, but the fantasy of his childhood. Large rooms made cozy with cushioned furniture, fireplaces, and photographs framed on the wall. This was a house were a family lived. This was a place were a family loved each other. Ronan radiated chaotic energy in his tense muscles. 

“Should I just…” Adam set his duffle bag down by the bottom of the staircase. Ronan wasn’t going to give him any clues. 

Ronan dropped his duffle with a thump, and then lead the way to where a symphony of cooking percussion was coming from the kitchen. He wrapped his knuckles against the doorframe upon entering, and a blonde woman who was composing dinner at the kitchen counter disentangled from her work. 

“Ronan!” she said, pure joy, before hugging him. Ronan even hugged her back. After they parted the woman who had to be Mrs. Lynch turned that pure mothering onto her son’s new boyfriend.

“And you must be Adam,” she said, and with all of Ronan’s anxieties, Adam had expected to hear some malice or distaste hidden and laced, but there wasn’t. She cupped his face in her hands to get a good look at him and then squeezed him in an embrace as well. Adam was slow to lift his arms in an appropriate response. Just a few moments with Aurora Lynch was like staring directly into the sun. 

Upon releasing Adam, Aurora shouted through another doorway deeper into the house -- god, this house was big -- that “Your brother’s here!” 

Into the kitchen came barrelling the to be loved and protected youngest brother Matthew. The times Adam had witness Ronan on the phone with him -- one of the few people he would tolerate long phone conversations with -- Ronan fluctuated between affection and irritation in the way of younger siblings. Not that Adam knew anything about having younger siblings or any siblings at all. 

If Aurora was like the sun, then Matthew was like a puppy. Energetic, eager, and easily distracted. He had been home from college brother-less for a week already, and seemed to accepted Adam new presence as a given, as an easy extension of Ronan, and that was that. No complications about it. 

“Dad here?” Ronan asked after Matthew was sent away with an early Christmas gift from Ronan.

Back over the stove, Aurora answered, “He had to run out on some last minute business.”

Ronan tensed about the eyes. Adam noticed because Adam had been watching. This might be a new place with new people, but the most fascinating thing was how Ronan existed in it, familiar and uncomfortable at once. 

“Why don’t you go get settled in. Declan should be here within the hour. Then it’ll be dinner time.” 

As they carried their luggage upstairs, Adam said, “See, it’s not that bad.”

Ronan replied, “You’ve just met the easy ones.” 

 

#

 

Declan Lynch, the oldest brother, was too polished for a home cooked dinner in a farmhouse. He wore cufflinks and shook Adam’s hand like he had taken a class on handshakes. Something about him reminded Adam of the slick business henchman who worked for super villians and got killed off in the second act. 

They sat down for dinner after Declan arrived but before the missing patriarch. “The food’s warm when it’s warm,” Aurora said. No one fussed about it. The impression was that many a meal had started without the Mr. Lynch present. 

Like it was assumed, all folded hands and ducked heads, and a blessing before the meal was recited. Adam kept his hands in lap. One of the many areas Ronan and Adam differed in their relationship was religion. For all his vices, Ronan believed in God so much it pained him. Adam didn’t believe in god and also didn’t think that hard about it. 

Niall Lynch, the man, the legend, the father, arrived when they were into their second servings of dinner. He came in with no apology for lateness and no announcement, but the air of the room shifted like a celebrity had entered. At attention. The room was now his. He ruffled Matthew’s hair on the way past his chair, leaned down to kiss his wife on the cheek, and then took his seat at the head of the table. A king in his court. 

Ronan and Adam had to sit there, awaiting his judgement.

“What a great thing come to after a business headache. A delicious meal and all my family gathered around it. Haven’t had all of us together since…?”

“Easter,” Aurora supplied.

“Yes, Easter. Ronan didn’t come home for Thanksgiving.”

“I had a show,” Ronan said, like he had to say it many times before. Adam, who sometimes got overwhelmed by the amount of family holidays he didn’t have a family for, was glad to spend that long weekend around an art gallery instead of a lone dinner table.  

“We so grateful to have a guest this year too,” Aurora said, tossing a grin Adam’s way. Adam’s grinned reply was a grimace. Adam didn’t do well with ‘center of attention’ attention because for most of this life it had been bad. 

Niall Lynch’s attention finally settled onto Adam, who was sitting beside Ronan on a long side of the table. 

“Dad, this is Adam.” 

Adam had practiced this moment. In his head. With Ronan standing across from his as a stand in, even as Ronan goaded him for it. He wished he had those handshake lessons Declan seemingly did.  

But in his head they were both standing, and there wasn’t a table in between them, and the room in the air didn’t feel like it was clogged with summer humidity in the end of December.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Mr. Lynch,” Adam said, but he didn’t have natural charm, so it sounded rehearsed. Because it was rehearsed. He was lucky to find a partner who had no use for the veneer of charisma, but it didn’t mean that his family didn’t. 

“Welcome to our home, Adam,” Niall said, but it was just a little stilted. Then his eyes dropped and he started serving food onto his plate. Once he looked up again, it was as Adam didn’t exist. “Declan, did you have a good drive down?”  
Ronan ducked his head and whispered, “Just keep eating.”  

Niall didn’t say a single thing to Adam for the rest of dinner. 

 

#

 

After dinner was spent with another family tradition Adam had grown up seeing on TV but hadn’t grown up doing: decorating the Christmas tree. Adam had a feeling he was going to be racking up a lot of these experiences this holiday week. In many ways, the Lynches were a traditional family: a rowdy group of siblings, a doting mother, a stern enigma of a father, and Catholic to boot. 

Out of boxes they unpacked delicate glass bulbs and birdseed, ribbon, and pipe cleaner homemades.   
“This you?” Adam asked of popsicle sticks glued into the shape of a stick person with the head being a roughly cut out oval of a photograph of a chubby-cheeked toddler.

“Yes,” Ronan said, quickly followed by, “Shut up.”

Adam hung it on a middle branch at eye level of the real but perfectly shaped and perfectly full evergreen. 

“Nightcaps, everyone,” Niall Lynch announced as he started handing out glasses with about an inch of amber liquid in them. When he reached Adam with an offering, Adam had to turn him down. 

“Thanks,” he said. “But I don’t drink.”

Adam might as well said he killed cats for fun. 

“What is it?” Adam asked of Ronan’s drink after the awkward moment had passed. They were in the corner by the fireplace away from everyone else. Everyone had petered out on decorating except for Matthew. 

“Water of life,” Ronan said, taking a sip. “Irish whiskey.” 

“I should’ve just taken a glass and then made you drink it,” Adam said. Because you didn’t make people like you by refusing their favors. 

“Then you’d have to keep up the fucking ruse forever,” Ronan said. 

“Forever?” 

“I mean… the whole week.” 

Adam ached to kiss him. “Forever,” he repeated, not a question.

Ronan took another sip of his drink, pretended it was the alcohol going to his head. 

 

#

 

Adam lifted a snowflake ornament from its tissue paper wrapping. It looked as delicate as spun sugar and gleamed with a different internal color every time he blinked. 

Ronan took it from his hand and hung on the tree, in a spot kind of hidden around the back.

“Was that real?” Adam mouthed in a private question.

“You touched it, didn’t you?” Ronan replied, although that didn’t answer the question Adam was asking. 

“Adam, is your family okay with you spending Christmas away?” The question came from Niall, apropos of nothing, throned on a leather armchair that looked aged in that dignified, antique way instead of in the worn out way. 

“Dad,” Ronan said. “It’s not--”

“I’m just asking a question,” Niall said.

Adam pressed his foot against Ronan’s where they stood side by side. 

“I don’t have much family,” Adam replied. He folded over the tissue paper that had held the snowflake. He had long ago learned tactful and vague words to answer these type of questions. “I’m an only child and I’m estranged from my parents.”

Again, a killing cats reaction. 

“You can a lot about a person through their relationship with their family.” 

Ronan: “Dad.”

Adam was used to be being insisted at about the importance of family. And the people who insisted at weren’t the ones to take easy, waveaway answer. The truth, usually, would set Adam free of their interrogations, but Adam Parrish did not owe the history of his suffering to anyone. 

“It’s just a question, Ronan. A normal question.”

“A fucking private one.”  

The politics of the room then played out in a series of subtle gestures. Aurora Lynch, ending the blow out argument before it descended, laid a hand on her husband’s arm, quieting his next brewing thought before it reached his lips. 

To the room, she said, “I baked cookies today. Anyone up for cookies?”

Matthew was, enthusiastically and undamped by the mood of the room. Aurora left the room in search of her sugary bribe. Niall was suitably silent for the moment. Ronan could’ve lit on fire where he stood. 

Declan cleared his throat. “So, Adam, what do you?” he asked. 

“I’m a chemical engineer.”

“So the exact opposite of an artist.”

Ronan grumbled under his breath. 

“By which I mean,” Declan continued, seeming for pleased with himself. “You actually do something useful.”

“I will punch you in the face, Declan, I swear to high heaven,” Ronan said, but the anger he had now was very different than anger he had been showing with his father. 

“Cookies are served,” Aurora said, reentering with a plate. 

 

#

 

“I’m sorry.” But Ronan seemed more upset than Adam felt. 

“I’m used to father’s not liking me,” Adam said. “Your dad isn’t that scary.”

Ronan snorted -- a brief laugh. He pulled Adam close and pressed a kiss to his temple. 

“Let’s go to bed,” he said, “Before my dad suggests you sleep in the guest room.”

“I saw your single bed earlier,” Adam said. “The guest room might be more comfortable.” 

But Adam could and had fallen asleep before on the floor, jackknifed in an armchair, and once at a party on a set of indoor stairs. So crammed up against the furnace of Ronan’s body and sharing a pillow on a good mattress was hardly a trial.

 

#

He woke up in sunlight and with Ronan’s lips on his neck. 

“Morning,” Adam whispered as Ronan kissed lower and then disappeared under the blankets completely. 

It was hard to stay quiet under Ronan’s attentions. Adam had no knowledge of the thickness of the walls or how close someone could be to overhearing any telling gasp. It was hard to keep himself contained as Ronan put his mouth to work under the covers but Adam somehow managed, even through the climax. 

Ronan crawled out from under the covers. “Merry Christmas Eve.”

It took Adam a few moments for him to regain his ability to form words. 

“Was this some fantasy of yours? Blowing a guy in your father’s house.” 

“Shut up,” Ronan said, which wasn’t the best sign. If Ronan had taken it as a joke, he would’ve said ‘fuck off.’ ‘Shut up’ was for sore spots. A proceed no further warning sign. 

Ronan climbed out of bed over Adam. “Time to get dressed. There are chores to do.”

“Chores?”

“This is a farm. There’s always chores.” 

 

#

 

Niall was the proper image of a father, sitting in the kitchen reading a newspaper.

“Getting a late start this morning, city boys,” he said, not even looking up.

Ronan, who seemed to have taken a vow of silence, tossed Adam an apple from a bowl on the table. 

“I’m not a city boy,” Adam said, although that was the image he tried to project. Born and raised city people saw him as a downright hick. 

Not acknowledging, Ronan grabbed Adam by the sleeve and guided him straight outside. It was crisp day in the mid-forties. Adam took a crunking bite into his apple as he followed Ronan across the lawn and to one of the many outbuildings. Ronan pushed through one of the barn doors.

“Time to meet the rest of the family,” Ronan said. They were in a barn full of cows. 

He went to up an all black cow in the first stall, placed his hand gently on its nose. “This is Shadow.”  

“I’ve seen cows in fields a million times,” Adam said. “They’re huge up close.”

“Come on,” Ronan said, and held out his free hand. In it he took Adam’s, and guided his nervous hand up to Shadow’s head. 

“Cow’s are nice. Just… don’t get trampled by one.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Adam said. 

“You’re coming across as a real city boy right now.” 

“I’m sorry. My family was too poor to own livestock.” 

Ronan huffed behind him.

“Do the rest of them have names?”

“Of course they fucking do. Come on.”  

Ronan introduced him to all the cows, then said, “Alright. Time to milk them.”

“What?” Adam said, befuddled. 

“I said their were chores. Petting cows isn’t a chore. It’s a fucking delight.” 

“...I think I’ll watch.” 

Ronan shrugged. “Your loss.” 

So Adam watched as Ronan went to work. What he found was he less interested in the work, but in Ronan doing it. He seemed to fall into that meditative, peace of mind state that Adam had only seen him reach in front of his canvas or with his sketch pad. It was of the rare moment when Ronan’s mind and body were together at singular purpose instead of being at war. 

They spent close to an hour out in the barn. All done, Ronan wiped his hands on his jeans, and said, “You missed out.” 

“I don’t think I did,” Adam replied. He watched Ronan with heavy eyes. Ronan noticed. He stepped right on up to Adam, and then stepped him back against the barn wall. He pressed his hungry mouth against Adam’s, and Adam reciprocated. It didn’t matter that everything smelled of hay and cow and manure, this was a place of peace in Ronan’s homeland where he could be himself in a way he was even rarely ever himself. 

“Hey, Ronan. You in here? Mom’s looking…” Declan rounded the barn door. “...For you.”

Ronan and Adam broke apart, but not so apart that it wasn’t immediately obvious what they’d been doing. 

“The hay loft is way more romantic,” Declan said. 

Ronan stepped further back from Adam. “Fuck off,” he said, first. Then, “What does Mom want?” 

“Hell if I know… Now, hurry up. You know how she is. I’ll help Adam finish up here.”

Ronan eyed him skeptically. 

Declan put up his hands. “I’ll play nice. Promise.” 

Adam watched as Ronan stalked off, shoulder hunched up. For the first time he was being left alone with one of Ronan’s family members. 

Declan went up and stroked Shadow’s nose. 

“I think we’re done anyway,” Adam said. An exit would be well received right now. 

“Milking sure,” Declan said. “Still got to let them out to graze.” But he didn’t seem all that pressed to get to that. Instead, he leaned up against of the stalls. 

“Have you been enjoying all the drama so far?” 

“Enjoying is a strong word,” Adam said.  

Declan smirked. He crossed his arms and drummed his fingers on his own arm. “If Ronan brought you here, this is serious for him.”

“It’s serious for me,” Adam said. 

“Good,” Declan said, like punctuation. That was all, it seemed, he deemed appropriate for interrogation. “Welcome to the Lynch family. Good for you that you can hold your own. It’s not easy being on Dad’s bad side.” He paused, brow wrinkled, and snorted. “It’s not easy being on Dad’s good side. Look how he treats Ronan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Because Adam saw how Niall treated Ronan, and it was like a homophobic father and there was nothing special about that. 

“Well, you know…” Declan shrugged a shoulder like he very well knew. “He’s dad’s favorite.” 

 

#

 

Adam found Ronan again when he made it back to the kitchen. Ronan caught Adam by the waist and said, “Do you want to go for a ride?” 

Adam knew, of course, what Ronan was actually asking: ‘Will you go on a ride with me?’ 

They went right then. Ronan zoomed around known country roads and Adam sat in the passenger’s seat waiting until Ronan would be ready to talk. 

The ended up parked at a look out on one of the nearby mountain ridges. The view was beautiful even though most trees were currently winter bare, but Adam was more interested to know what was going on inside Ronan’s head. He thought he got his boyfriend most days, had learned the language of his nuances, the tones of his silences, and how to navigate the rough edges. Ronan immersed in this environment -- his home environment -- was something else. 

“Declan give you a hard time?” Ronan asked, the first words he spoke since the request that got them here. Adam’s conversation with Declan had taken place easily over an hour ago, easily maybe more, though it had already circulated several times in Adam’s head again. 

“He was fine,” Adam said. “Nice.”

Ronan shot him a look. “He’s not nice.”

Nice might’ve been the wrong word, but Declan hadn’t been cruel. 

“He seems like he’s a good brother,” Adam amended. 

Ronan scoffed and said nothing more as he turned his gaze back out the windshield. 

Since they weren’t moving anymore, Adam reached over and touched Ronan’s knee. It was the question ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ without the words. 

“He’s such an asshole,” Ronan spat. 

“Declan?”

“My father… Mom was just doing his dirty work. He was really the one looking for me.” 

“Ah.”

“I told him he had to stop treating you like shit.”

There were worse things than a few snide comments, but Adam squeezed Ronan’s knee regardless. It was nice to have someone who wanted to defend you. 

“I told him we were moving in together.” Ronan was still looking straight forward. “In January. When your lease was up.” 

Adam’s lease was up in January. He had talked about it with Ronan as he did most curving paths in his life. Here it had been his personal debate on the costs of moving versus the costs of rent versus the cost of finding something in a better location, like a location that was in the same portion of the city where both Adam’s job was located and Ronan lived. They hadn’t talked about… this. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Ronan said. “If you want to move in with me. In January. When your lease is up.” Because Adam would never move when he would have to pay for breaking a lease. 

“I --” Adam started. “Are you asking now?”

Ronan finally looked at him. “That’s the fucking implication.”

“God. You really know how to ruin a moment.” 

“I haven’t heard an answer.” 

Usually this would have to be something Adam thought about. Not because he had doubt but because he was a thinker, a calculator, a planner -- monetary costs and emotional toll. Moving apartments meant figuring out the new costs -- rent and utilities and his insistence that he pay half. The argument would have to wait for another day. 

“Yes,” Adam said. “I want to.”

“You want to?”

“I will.”

Ronan picked up Adam’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back of his knuckles. It was one of his softer things. Adam had never dated anyone before Ronan that did something like that… kissed him on the back of the hand. It made him shiver every fucking time. 

Adam’s hands were calloused and often chapped. He spent his teenage years fixing cars and those hard spots hadn’t worn away yet. Ronan -- even now as he played with Adam’s fingers with his own, twisting them eventually into an interlaced handhold -- treated them as something precious and special, as he treated Adam as something precious and special. 

Ronan Lynch was a being made of love. It was such a cruel shame that he lived in a world, that he lived in a family, where it would always be under question. 

Adam mouthed three words -- the three words -- for Ronan to see. To know. Said often before, but in forever reminder, “I love you.”

 

#

 

Niall’s car was gone from drive when they returned. Adam noticed, and he only knew it was Niall’s car from process of elimination. He was sure Ronan noticed. 

Inside, Aurora fed them the lunch she had kept warm for them, said nothing of their absence, and then sat Adam down with a load of family photo albums as she narrated the past. Ronan hovered, arms crossed, looking properly embarrassed over photos of him in diapers and in his awkward adolescence that all things considered wasn’t that awkward. 

“I remember you with curly hair,” Adam said, looking up at Ronan who sat perched on the armrest beside him. 

Aurora cooed. “I miss that curly hair. You should grow it out again.”

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. “Grow it out.”

Ronan said, “No.” 

“Wait,” Aurora said. “You knew Ronan back when he had curly hair?” 

“We met in college,” Adam said. The room hissed with uneasiness. 

“I didn’t know,” Aurora said, and it sounded a little sad. She could only not know because Ronan hadn’t told her. 

“You know now,” Ronan muttered, but he wasn’t looking at either of them. 

Before more could be said, the front door opened and in came Niall and Declan. The room got even more quiet. They passed through.  

“Adam needs a break,” Ronan declared. He held out a hand. “Come on.”

If being left alone with Aurora in the living room now didn’t threaten to feel so awkward, Adam might’ve protested. Instead he said, “Thanks for sharing your memory books, Mrs. Lynch. Maybe we can do some more another time.” And then he excused himself. 

Once they were tucked back into Ronan’s bedroom, the door snicked shut, Ronan said, “I’m not embarrassed by you.” Like he predicted that what was Adam was thinking. It wasn’t. He knew Ronan too well to imagine him gushing. 

“It’s okay. I haven’t told my parents we met in college either.” 

It wasn’t the same thing. They both knew it. But Ronan took it for what it was. 

Standing there, Adam got a better look at the room than he had last night or this morning. It was pretty big, he thought, for what had been a child’s room. It was full of a lifetime of possessions: children’s books and dinosaur toys, a video game console and its connected TV, a tower of CDs and a big-speakered stereo. All these made sense. Less sense-making was the violin sitting uncased and dusty on the desktop. 

“I didn’t know you played music.” He dragged a finger down the shape of the wood. It was glossy underneath. 

Ronan came over. “I used to.” He plucked a string. “Fuck, that’s out of tune.” 

So close to him, Adam just inched forward. He kissed Ronan’s jaw. 

“This trip is so fucked up,” Ronan said. 

“We all got our shit.” Adam sure as hell had his and Ronan had been there for him. 

Ronan slide an arm around Adam’s shoulders, pulling him even closer. Adam leaned in, warmth and weight shared. 

“I don’t talk to my mom about stuff like that,” Ronan said, and no more. Because Adam didn’t ask. Not right now. Maybe in the future. At a better, braver, stronger time. For right now, he could just fill in the gaps. Stuff that was personal. Stuff about dating. Stuff about being gay. 

There was a pounding on the bedroom door. Matthew’s voice called through. “Ronan, you back? Want to play video games?” 

Ronan loosed his hold. “Video games?” 

Adam nodded. That’s how they spent the rest of their day. 


	2. Flashbacks

Freshman Year

 

Probably the only reason Adam Parrish recalled Ronan Lynch as the boy who sat quietly beside him during the first day of freshman orientation is because of all the times Ronan had shown up, in contrasting forms, in his life since. That day, orientation, Ronan had moppy-curly hair and looked small -- even though in hindsight Adam knew he was tall -- sitting beside Adam in his auditorium chair. 

They hadn’t spoken any significant words to each other that day except made perfunctory ‘excuse me’ or ‘hi’ that was easily forgotten, nor had any significant interaction of the unspoken sort. But Adam did remember thinking: ‘Do I look as scared and young as this kid?’

Which was a strange thought to stir from Adam Parrish’s head. He never felt young, really, even though he was only eighteen now. Sure, he had lived through the downside of the world treating him as a youth -- of being powerless and beholden his parents. But to so many ‘young’ meant energetic, carefree, and naive. With the way Adam Parrish had been raised, he had been stripped of those thing before he could ever remember being them, and instead they were replaced with a weariness, a wariness, and a knowing too well of how cruel one human being could be to another, defenseless one. 

The kid dropped from Adam’s mind until they shared an art history class together second semester. Growing up in a small town, Adam had always assumed his ability to recognize people was a fact of their not being that many people around, but college revealed to him he was good at recognizing and remembering faces. Even more, Adam recognized him as the boy who sat next to him during orientation even though he had morphed from a scared freshie into a second semester freshman playing at his new ‘college student’ identify. Ronan’s hair was shaved on the sides now with just a shorter mop of curls on top. Instead of slouching his chair, the long lines of his body was leaned back in the most disgraceful of lounges. 

Adam looked too long. Ronan -- although Adam didn’t know his name yet -- glanced over his way. It was a strange thing how humans feel another human’s eyes on them like a brand. Adam looked away, reconcentrated his attention on the cover of his two hundred dollar textbook. 

So that passed, and then Adam braved up enough to go to his first LGBTQ Club meeting. Ronan was there, and so they spoke their first words to each other. 

Ronan: “Hey.”

Adam: “Hey.” 

“You’re in my -- um -- art hist class.” 

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I’m not much of an art person, but I needed a history credit and it was the only one that fit my schedule.” 

“I’m literally an art person,” Ronan replied. “I mean, I’m a fucking art major, so I’m required to take it… I’m Ronan.” 

He didn’t take his hands over his pockets with the introduction, so Adam figured he wouldn’t try to initiate a handshake either. He found social situations nebulous and difficult to decipher. He wished they had grading rubrics like class assignment and maybe he’d figure out how to achieve at them, but until then…  
“Adam,” he said. 

“Adam,” this guy -- now Ronan officially -- repeated. “The first man.” 

“What’s that mean?” He got the reference, but not the implication of Ronan’s tone. 

Ronan shrugged. He was tall. Adam hadn’t noticed with all the leaning and slouching he did in class, but standing there -- He was tall. And Adam wasn’t short himself. 

Ronan said, “See you in class.” 

 

#

 

“Draw a slip of paper from the hat,” said Prof Keating as she handed an upside down baseball cap to person at the front left desk in the classroom: Adam Parrish. Unlike most people he had no hesitancy about sitting in the front. He was here to learn and to get the best grades, not play on his phone or gossip with his neighbor. 

He took a slip and passed the hat to the person next to him.

“On each slip is a different artistic time period that you will be doing your midterm project on. Find the person who matches you, because that is your project partner. Take the last five minutes of class to plan.” 

Group projects. Adam hated group projects. He could control himself but not other people. 

First semester he had dated this girl from his dorm for about a month before she broke up with him. She had said he had trust issues. Adam hadn’t thought that was fair; he just thought people had to thoroughly prove themselves before he could trust them. 

A pair of knuckles knocked on his desktop. Ronan. 

“Neoclassical?” he asked. He held up his paper slip. 

Adam smoothed his out on the desk. “Looks like we’re partners.” 

“Awesome. You answer more questions than everyone else in this class combined.” 

“I think I’m the only who actually does the reading,” Adam said. 

“Yeah. Probably.” Ronan pulled up a chair to the other side of Adam’s desk. “When do you want to meet?” 

Adam slid out his planner from under his two hundred dollar textbook. He couldn’t stop thinking about it that way. It was especially painful as it wasn’t even a two hundred dollar textbook within his major that he could presumably find use for after he completed the course. 

“It looks like I have some free time Friday afternoon?” 

Another downside of group work: scheduling. He couldn’t just slip the work into whatever strange, convenient minutes worked for him. 

“Shit, is that your schedule?” 

“I’m busy,” Adam said. That’s what happened when you were a double major who held two part time jobs to pay for living expenses. 

“I guess Friday’s fine, but it’s Friday. Shit, no one does homework on Friday.”

“I do,” Adam said, although he already knew he wasn’t like your average member of the student population. 

Around them, there was a rustle of activity -- bags being packed, chairs being shuffled -- signs that the end of the class time had come. 

“Fine,” Ronan said. “Your dorm or mine?” 

Adam was going to suggest the library, but he was so bamboozled by this question and too worried that his partner was going to scurry off before plans could be solidified, that he said, “Mine.” 

 

#

Adam had supposed that Ronan, being an art major, would be more mature about dicks in Renaissance paintings than your average undeclared major. Adam found out he was wrong about this assumption. 

Adam and Ronan had two very different methods of doing school work. Adam had notecards, a checklist, and three pens on standby. Ronan couldn’t sit still for more than three minutes at a time. He stretched. He yawned. He cricked his neck. He chewed on the leather brands around his wrist. He made random, one-liner commentary about Renaissance dicks and his roommate, who apparently was also named Dick. Right now he was pacing, and Adam was very close to ripping Ronan’s half of the assignment from his metaphorical grasp and doing this group project in a single player mode. 

Ronan picked up a framed photograph from Adam’s roommate’s desk -- a guy who had started dating a sophomore with a single dorm two weeks into the year and had been spending all his time there instead -- inspected it, and put it back down on the opposite side of the desk. 

Then, he said, “Have you ever kissed a guy?” 

Adam looked up. “What?” Because last they spoke, he had assigned Ronan the task to look up relevant points about Anton Raphael Mengs. 

“You were at that meeting,” Ronan said. 

“I’m bi.” He was still getting used to saying it outloud. Each time feels like a protest on his lips. 

“So?” Ronan said. “Have you?” 

Adam rolled his eyes. Maybe they’d get back to work faster if answered. “Yes. I’ve kissed a guy.” One. In high school. He wasn’t fleshing out those details. “If you’re done with your research I can give you more.”

“I’ve never kissed anybody.” 

“We have a project,” Adam said. “The more we focus, the faster we get it done, and the faster you have your Friday night free to go kissing anyone you want.” 

Ronan plopped back down to where he a claimed a working space -- without invitation -- on Adam’s neatly made bed.

“Not like I fucking can. Don’t know how.”  

Adam had learned from a first semester party where a drunk girl he had never met ended up crying on his shoulder for a half an hour because he had asked her if she was alright that there was something about college and being social in college that meant that something you have to shoulder a relative strange’s emotional drama. 

“If it’s bothering you so much, I’ll kiss you,” Adam said. He wasn’t sure why he said it, except that he was irritated and thought maybe the best way forward was through. He hadn’t been able to cow Ronan into diligence yet this afternoon. 

“What?” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Adam said. He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s not.” 

He didn’t hold any special romantic notions about a kiss or even a first kiss. Sure, it could be linked to romantic things, but just as readily unlinked as perfunctory or fun. 

Ronan didn’t respond other than staring down at his textbook for the first time in minutes. Christ, maybe Adam had made him uncomfortable. Well, at least they were getting some work done now. 

Adam tucked a notecard into the book’s crease like a bookmark and then flipped the page. 

“Um,” Ronan said, interrupting the incremental progress. “Okay.”

Adam froze, fingers pinched on the turning page. He really hadn’t thought his offer would be taken up, just that the suggestion of it would show much he had meant that a kiss was no big deal. 

He looked up. “Are you serious?”  
“Are you?” Ronan countered. 

Adam stood up. That was a yes. He moved to sit next to Ronan on the bed. He left a conscious gap. Ronan’s eyes watched him unblinking as he moved across the room. 

“You have to promise me that once we do this,” Adam said. “You’re going to focus on the report.” 

Ronan nodded. 

Adam placed a hand on the side of Ronan’s face. The boy was going to need some guidance. As they leaned in he tilted Ronan’s head so that their mouths met without any nose bumping. It started as just closed lips, mouth-to-mouth. A kiss, sure, by strictest definition, but hardly one that someone needed experience in. 

If Ronan’s first kiss was going to be with a project partner who was doing it as a favor, Adam might as well make it a good one. 

Adam opened his mouth, pressed in deeper. Ronan received it all in return. 

Once he was sure the obligations of the contract were complete, plus some, Adam pulled gently back. His hands trailed down to Ronan’s shoulders. 

“See,” Adam said. “Not a big deal.” 

Adam had no idea what he started. 

 

**#**

 

Senior Year

 

Dina had promised she wouldn’t leave him. She knew he wasn’t a bar person. She knew he was only coming out at her request, to keep her company. And yet, an hour into their outing a girl who was ‘exactly her type’ was making eyes at her from across the bar, Dina promised that she would ‘owe him one forever.’ So, here he was, sitting at the bar, alone, drinking a Sprite. 

“Let me guess? Senior at Brown. Night off from studying… art history?” 

Adam turned on his stool to the man who had spoken from behind him. He didn’t recognize him immediately. What he saw was an attractive young man -- tall, broad-shouldered, with a shaved head that drew more attention to the roman structure of his features. If the comment had been intended as opening fliration -- and it had sounded like opening flirtation -- Adam wasn’t opposed. He was a lot more confident in his sexuality now than just a few years ago... and it had been a while. 

“That’s…” Adam looked the guy in the eyes, and it all clicked in. “Ronan.” 

“First man,” Ronan replied, raising his beer bottle in a little toast. “Is this your first time out of the dorm since freshman year? Haven’t seen you around.” 

“I keep busy,” Adam said. “And I don’t think engineering and art majors have a lot of classes in common after gen eds. How you been?” 

Ronan shrugged. On him, it was a laissez faire gesture. 

His look had changed, even more between first semester freshman year to second. 

“You here alone?” Ronan asked, taking a swig of his drink as a chaser to his probing question. 

There was a long winded explanation to that question, but there was also a short-winded answer to the question Ronan was actually asking. 

Adam leaned forward on the stool. “Not anymore.” 

 

#

 

Adam Parrish ended up going back with Ronan to his off campus apartment. Adam was currently still in the dorms working as a RA because it paid for room and board. 

“You live here alone?” Adam asked.

“I needed more room for my art.” 

Adam might’ve had opinions on the impracticality of things of majors like art. He always had to consider job market, industrustry growth, and return on investment. Sure, he understand that art was important to the culture and someone had to do it, but it was a rich kid’s major. 

At least when Ronan said he needed room for his art it was clear that used it. All the fixing you would expect from a single living college student were there -- the empty beer cans and pizza boxes and shoes -- but also pencil sketches, half rolled tubes of acrylic paints, graffiti art on one wall that would definitely cost him his security deposit, and still the most dominating feature, the large canvas spread out the floor. The living area could only be navigated by tiptoeing around the edges. 

“You have rich parents, don’t you?” Adam said. 

“Is that a problem?” Ronan asked.  

“It’s just annoying.” 

“My dad pays for the apartment and gets to pretend it makes up for him being a dick. How am I going to turn that down?” 

“I’m going to say it again. Annoying.” 

Ronan smirked, pleased. “Want anything to drink?” 

“Water’s fine,” Adam said. Ronan disappeared into the kitchen. Adam eyed the work in progress on the floor. It was something abstract, or maybe he just couldn’t see the sense in it yet. Didn’t you paint from the background up? 

Ronan returned. Handed over Adam’s water. Had a glass with about an inch of something amber. 

“You have a…?” Adam dragged a finger down his own neck matching where he saw the line of ink on Ronan. 

Ronan set down his glass and rucked up and off his shirt. That hadn’t been Adam’s goal at his question, but he wasn’t objecting. 

Ronan turned to let Adam see the expanse of the tatoo. A set of black feathered wings starting at his spine and spread across his shoulder blades and shoulders and even a little down his arms. 

“Like an angel’s?”

“A raven’s,” Ronan said. “In flight.”

Adam couldn’t help himself. He stepped forward and touched. First just a tentative drag of his fingertips. Then, his entire palm. He didn’t know why for some illogical moment he had expected tattooed skin to feel different from the rest, but it just warm and smooth. 

Ronan turned back to face Adam. His eyes were blue but his gaze was somehow dark as it dwelled on him, the hunger unmistakable.

“I want to paint you,” he said. 

“What?” 

“I want to paint  _ on _ you.”

Adam still wasn’t sure what that meant until Ronan added, “Take off your shirt.”

 

#

 

The paint was cold. Ronan’s hands were warm. Adam was so fucking turned on and Ronan hadn’t even gotten to touching any of the naughty bites yet. Ronan dragged four turquoise covered fingers down the side of Adam’s neck. Then, something else pressed to his nape: lips, teeth. 

Adam swore on a gasping breath. He was feeling needy in a very particular way.    

“Do you have condoms?” he asked. 

“...Yeah.” 

“Go get them.” 

Ronan left and came back with condoms, lube, and hands clean from paint so they could be put to work in another capacity. 

Sitting on the floor, Adam stared up at him. “Take off your pants.”

“You’re bossy,” Ronan said as he dropped the supplies on the canvas.

“I just know what I want,” Adam said. “And I want you to fuck me.” 

Ronan dropped down to his knees right in front of where Adam leaned, fingers working on the latch of Adam’s belt. 

“Here?” Adam breathed. “I’ll get paint on your canvas.” 

“That’s the point.” Ronan hooked his hands under Adam’s knees and tugged. Adam landed flat on his back; Ronan tugged his pants down over his hip and off his legs. Lips pressed to the inside of his ankle, then knee, then naked thigh. Higher. 

Adam’s neck arched. He swore. 

Contact between them separated. Eyes screwed shut, he heard the click out a bottle top opening. A finger, cold and wet, pressed into him a moment later. He let out a noise, involuntary, from the deep hollows of his throat. 

“You good?” Ronan asked. 

“Keep going.” 

Ronan kept going, working in one finger and then another, until Adam said, “I’m ready.” 

Fingers withdrew. A condom wrapper was was ripped open. Adam tried to hold himself together by just breathing.  

Ronan leaned down on one elbow, kissed him with a hungry mouth. As he did so, he reached over the pallet of paints used from earlier and dragged his palm through the remains then that hand across Adam’s chest, thumbing catching way on his hard nipple.  

“Fuck.” The word burst between their mouths. 

Adam felt on the like he was buzzing on the edge of something -- of exploding, of flying, of his brain short circuiting. 

“I’m fucking getting to it.” Ronan nipped Adam’s bottom lip and then all Adam was left with was the chill of paint. Ronan had drawn back. His hands were on Adam’s hips. Adam, loose and desperate, just went when Ronan flipped him over onto his front. He must’ve picked up the certain thing Adam was aching for: muscles and manhandling. 

Then, Ronan was warm against his back, skin-to-skin and slick paint. 

“Ready?” 

“Been ready,” Adam replied, although he was shocked he even managed to have enough air in his lungs to get out words. 

As Ronan sunk into him, Adam squeezed his eyes shut and just felt. All of it. 

Soon they were moving together.   

“I’ve been thinking about this…” Ronan breathed into his ear between the pants of their bodies at work. “Since freshman year orientation.” 

Here it was, a strange tide -- that day Ronan had noticed and had remembered Adam too. 

#

 

Post graduation

 

“If I showed the canvas we fucked on, would that count as porn?” 

“No.”

“Was that an answer or an order?”

“Both.”  
Ronan smirked. He was being a shit, but Adam could tell he was nervous. It was his first real gallery showing and it was important that something happened. That a critic took a liking or an eccentric took an interest or something sold. Anything that meant someone cared, that someone got it, that Ronan was heard. 

“It’s like screaming inside a nightmare,” Ronan had said of it once. “And you just want someone to hear, but they never fucking do.” 

Adam knew some of what was going on inside Ronan’s soul, but that was because he was his boyfriend of about a year now. 

They had known each other for years longer than that, dashing in and out of each other’s lives like some bigger force was behind it. Maybe not so surprising when they went to the same college. More surprising when they ran into each other again a year and a half after graduation in an entirely different city. 

A rather trendy looked woman in her thirties approached. Adam sensed Ronan tensing beside him even though they weren’t even touching.

“Excuse me. Are the artist?” she asked, waving a hand at the wall the displayed Ronan’s pieces. 

Adam elbowed him.

“Yeah,” Ronan grunted. 

The woman flicked out of business card between manicured nails. “I’m a journalist with City Paper. You have the best stuff here tonight. Everyone else…” She rolled her eyes. “Trying to important, y’know? Your stuff is visceral. I’d love to follow up with you for an interview. I profile new emerging talent in the city.” 

“Uh…”

Adam accepted the card. “He’ll be more talkative at the interview.” 

 

# 

 

“I’m really glad I stayed in the city to do the show,” Ronan admitted as they walked down the dark street later that night. It was Thanksgiving weekend. There was time and travel that everyone had given up to be here. 

“I can’t believe I turned out to be so bougie, having an artist boyfriend,” Adam replied.  

“Watch who’re calling fucking bougie.” 

“Excuse me, how do you pay your rent again?” 

Ronan definitely wasn’t making it from his art. Not yet. And his freelance work was spotty. But he didn’t worry about money like Adam did because he had family money. Adam would’ve found it endlessly frustrating if he didn’t like Ronan so much. 

“Coming back to my place?” Ronan asked, throwing his arm around Adam’s neck and tugging his close against his side. 

Adam nodded. He spent a lot of nights at Ronan’s place now; he didn’t really feel like trekking across the city this late to get back to his place. More important, Ronan only invited him over on nights that he thought were going to be good nights. No night terrors. It had been an up and down weekend. Adam knew the value of celebrating victories as they came. 

#

 

Adam took a deck of tarot cards out of his satchel as Ronan got in the shower. Ronan was a preferred night showerer, and Adam preferred the morning. That was good for them not getting in each other’s way when getting ready, but sometimes -- on the weekend -- they compromised and took a midday shower together.

He shuffled the deck. 

One of his closest friends in college -- Dina -- was into crystals and essential oils and had an on again and off again relationship with veganism, amongst other impractical things. These were her cards, gifted to him at graduation. “You always seemed more into them than me,” she had said, and probably that was because that was the only one of her weird things that he was into at all. Not in any way that he could explain. Just that he had been drawn to them ever since she had forced him to sit down for a practice reading. 

“And I could never memorize all the meanings,” she had added. 

“I don’t think you’re supposed to memorize them,” Adam had said. You were supposed to feel them, he had thought then but didn’t voice. That, after all, was too ridiculous to voice aloud. 

Adam Parrish was still figuring out the shape of the person he was supposed to be. 

He cut the deck into four parts because it just felt right and then put them back together. The shower turned off. Ronan came back into the bedroom in just a towel. 

“That was fast.” Adam fanned the cards out on the bedspread.  

“Just needed to rinse off.” Ronan dug through his dresser. 

Adam hovered his hand over the cards, then picked one over from the edge of the curve to flip for a one card reading.

“What do you think about Christmas?” Ronan said as he pulled on pajama bottoms.   
“The decorations are a little tacky.” 

Ronan plopped down on the mattress beside Adam and stretched his limbs out. Sometimes, when Ronan sat shirtless and curled in, it looked like a shroud hanging over him.

“What do you think about spending Christmas at my family’s house for… like a week or something.” 

“You mean the Barns?” 

The Barns was stuff of legends from Ronan’s mouth. The summer him and his brothers built a treehouse. How he broke his arm jumping off the roof on a dare at age ten. Making a mess in the kitchen pursuit of Mother’s Day breakfast. Being taught to drive stick at thirteen in farm pick up.

A full childhood, full of brothers and loving parents and a big house surrounded by lots of land. A childhood that sounded like a fairy tale, except that Ronan didn’t really talk much about it from his teenage years on. 

When you were a gay guy who didn’t like to go home, it was easy to connect the dots, even if they hadn’t already talked about it on some late, vulnerable nights before. 

“My mom’s all upset I didn’t come home this weekend.” 

“Are you upset?” Adam asked. 

Ronan shifted on the mattress. “You want to go or not?” 

Adam looked at the card in his hand. The Chariot. Overcoming challenges and moving in a positive direction. 

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I want to go.”


	3. Christmas, and the Aftermath

“Christmas!” 

Adam was awakened by an elbow to his spleen. Matthew’s. Whose apparent Christmas morning tradition was waking up his older brother by jumping on him crosswise across his bed. No matter if the boyfriend was in it too, apparently. Ronan and Matthew got into some sort of wrestling match on the floor while Adam pulled the covers up over his head for a few minutes of extra shut eye. 

Only after Matthew had been convinced to go off and give the same Christmas morning treatment to Declan did Ronan climb back into bed. 

“Wake up.” He pulled down the covers. “It’s Christmas.” He kissed Adam’s neck. 

Adam mumbled. There were no words in particular he was trying to say, but a sentiment: Let me sleep. 

Last night, Adam had attended Christmas Eve Mass with the Lynch family. He wasn’t religious and had never been to Mass before, but was desperate for making at least one good impression toward the father he was dubious of. Plus, even his non-religious self could appreciate the stained glass windows and a rendition of Silent Night on the pipe organ. 

It was a midnight service which meant it started around eleven and went into the new day -- Christmas day. It was much later that they all arrived back at the Lynch farmhouse, the family split between two vehicles. Everyone went straight to bed. 

It was the crack of dawn now. That wasn’t enough sleep. He used to be able to survive on less, as a teenager, as he worked two jobs and maintained a scholarship-worthy GPA at a local private school, but once life had gotten steadier for him, he got to sleep more. It was never enough sleep. He was catching up on years missed. 

Ronan then gave him a wet willy -- a spit-slick finger stuffed in his ear -- which was much more effective in waking him up than neck kisses. 

Adam reluctantly followed Ronan out of bed. Bleary-eyed, he looked around the room for wherever his luggage had gone only to have Ronan tug on his arm. 

“Pajamas are fine,” he insisted. 

Downstairs, breakfast was already being cooked by Aurora who had somehow woken up even earlier than Matthew. 

Ronan directed his half conscious boyfriend to a stool and returned a moment later with a mug of coffee and a plate of toast for him. He knew too well how Adam was in mornings. This morning Adam was too tired to even be self-conscious.

Declan was shepherded downstairs next, followed by Niall, with Matthew bounding down after. Breakfast was had, then they moved as a group to the living room. 

Adam had lacking Christmases in his childhood. Dollar store gifts wrapped in newspaper if he was lucky. The tension of his father’s drinking all day while off work, bitterly reminded by the holiday of consumerism of how little he had, sucking all the joy out of the occasion. Adam had adult Christmases in the city -- in college and after -- with familyless friends like him or those who couldn’t afford the travel. Lunches and hangouts and white elephant gift exchanges. 

This was Christmas morning in all the cliches and warmth that Adam had never experienced. 

Adam and Ronan sat tucked together on one of the loveseats as gifts were exchanged. They had put their offerings under the tree the night they had arrived.

“Can’t leave you out,” Aurora said when she handed a package to Adam. Inside was a rather nice winter set of wool scarf, hat, and gloves that were definitely beyond the walmart priced items Adam owned. 

Ronan pulled the hat onto Adam’s head even though with the fireplace crackling, filled with food and coffee, and sitting beside Ronan, Adam was plenty warm. He left it on. 

Typically, Adam didn’t exchange any gifts with people without an explicit price limit in place. With Ronan, he was even more serious about it… on Ronan’s end. Adam wasn’t so cash strapped anymore that he couldn’t afford a little generous extravagance once or twice a year, but Ronan could afford to buy him anything and Adam didn’t want to be bought. He wanted to be understood. 

Adam’s gift to Ronan seemed small in the abundance of gift giving going on in the wealth of the Lynch home, but the smile that came on Ronan’s face -- unconscious and light -- when he ripped off the paper had proved that Adam hadn’t steered wrong. It was a model car of the exact make and model that Ronan drove with a few hand-painted alterations that Adam traded off of one of his artistically inclined friends to make it a perfect, personalized match, complete with the license plate number and the chrome detailing. 

Ronan handed over his gift in a bag. Adam lifted out the contents. It was a small potted plant with curious turquoise coloring. 

“What is it?” Adam asked. 

“A plant.”

Adam lowered the pot and gave Ronan  _ a look _ . “What kind of plant? What’s it called?”

“It’s… unique. You get to name it.”

Which meant it was something out of Ronan’s head -- his dreams. It was an impossible fact that they existed around, knowing, without ever examining it. Adam only knew to believe because he’d been in bed with Ronan when he had manifested things. And if wasn’t a normal thing to learn about your significant other, Adam sometimes knew suggestions of things that were going to happen before they happened, with no logic or explanation to it. 

Maybe weird, damaged people were meant to find each other. 

“It’s…” Something knotted in Adam’s chest. He had started taking care of plants at the suggestion of his therapist a few years ago. She strongly encouraged him to find something constructive to do, hobby-like, that had nothing to do with work or school or measuring success or making a budget. Gardening had been in the rattled off list of suggestions. Adam had picked it because the apartment-liver variation of that -- houseplants -- didn’t sound either too time consuming, expensive, or needing in creative talents he did not possess. 

Now he was obsessed, taking part in a meditative process of pruning and watering and rotating pots on the desk and window sills so they got enough light.  

here was his offering of understanding. 

“It’s perfect,” Adam said, after all that internal struggle. 

“It’s just a plant,” Ronan replied.

He had never talked to Ronan explicitly about this. Just in suggestion and pass away comments. And Ronan had seen it. He put all the pieces together. Looked and listened and... 

“It’s not,” Adam said. 

If they’d been in just each other’s company they would’ve kissed. It would’ve been an easier way to say ‘thank you, thank you for understanding me’ than it was with words. If they had been in the company of a few of their closest friends, Ronan would’ve leaned forward and pecked the corner of Adam’s mouth, or lifted Adam’s hand to his mouth. But they weren’t alone or in comfortable company, so they just stared at each other in a silent conversation. Adam tried grinning, but he could feel how it came across as sad. 

Adam felt it then, what Ronan must’ve been feeling the entire time in this house, the suppression. Like a weight pressing in on him from all sides, making him smaller and less in the shape of himself.  

“The gifts are open,” Declan said from a sprawled spot at the end of the couch. “Am I allowed to go back to sleep now?”

Matthew threw a balled up piece of wrapping paper at him like a snowball.

 

#

 

“Good book?” Ronan asked. His head was laying in Adam’s lap. His legs were thrown over the opposite arm of the loveseat. Declan was snoring on the couch on the other side of the living room. Matthew was distracted by a handheld video game that had been one of his presents. The Lynch parents had disappeared upstairs and Adam had decided not to think about too hard about what they were doing. 

“I don’t know yet.” Adam turned a page. This book had been an early Christmas gift from a friend in the city. He wasn’t used to reading for pleasure and was still developing his preferences.

“You’ve been reading for an hour.” 

Adam ran his free hand over the short bristle of Ronan’s hair. “Not exactly.” Ronan’s constant little shifting had been distracting him. 

Ronan reached an arm up and wrapped it around the back of Adam’s neck. He pulled him down for that long delayed kiss. Ronan sucked Adam’s bottom lip into his mouth. 

Floorboards creaked. To Adam this house was creaky and that was just another random creak, but Ronan knew the meaning. It was a specific weight on a specific floorboard. 

Ronan scrambled out of the kiss, out of this lounge on Adam, into a sitting position on the couch. It was Niall in the doorway, the culprit cause of the noise. 

Niall cleared his throat. Over on the couch, Declan’s eyes had slipped just narrowly open, watching. 

“I wanted to show you something in the garage,” Niall said. The comment was directed at Ronan. Just at Ronan. At least the power had shifted some, because Niall left just after he said it, like he was too awkward to remain in the scene. 

“I’m sorry,” Ronan said. The words were scratched from his throat.

Adam pressed the tip of his tongue to the wounded spot of his now split lip. Not bloody split, but stinging and sensitive anyway. Somewhere in the clash of teeth as Ronan scrambled had left him wounded.  

“You don’t have to say sorry.” 

Ronan placed the pad of his thumb against that damaged spot on Adam’s lip. It stung.

“Sorry,” Ronan said; it carried on a breath. Declan’s eyes had slid shut again, but Adam didn’t think he was really sleeping. 

Ronan stood. He tugged on Adam’s sleeve. “Come with me.” 

Adam raised his eyebrows. It had very clearly been an individual invite. 

“It’s about cars,” Ronan said. “You know cars.” 

“You want me to show off and impress him?”

“I want you to come with me.” It was a much broader request. 

So Adam went with him. 

Inside the garage was Niall of course, and all the trapping of a garage, and the guest of honor -- an antique impala with the hood popped. Ronan immediately approached and dragged a hand over the smooth curve of the impala’s roof. He appreciated cars in all the sexy ways people liked cars: the sleek shape of them, the paint jobs, and what he could with one when he was sitting behind the wheel. Adam appreciated car’s insides and how all the parts came together. No wonder he ended up an engineer. He liked building things and making them work. 

“Where’d you get it?” Ronan asked his father. It was an unweighted question. 

“From a trade,” he said. “With a… client.” 

Adam watched as Ronan’s fingers curled. 

“She’s not running yet, though.”

Adam mosied up to the hood, eyes scanning the engine block. “The carborator’s all rusted out,” he commented. It wasn’t that insightful of an observation from a car guy perspective, but if Niall was a car guy of the same breed as his son…

“You know a thing or two about cars?” 

“I grew up working on ‘em.” 

When Ronan ended up close to his side again he nudged Adam’s side with his elbow. 

Niall cleared his throat. “Aurora told me that you two met in college.” Every single syllable sounded strained and yet it lingered as an opening. Adam nudged Ronan in the side back. 

“Yeah,” Ronan said. Adam stared at him until he said more. “But we really didn’t hang out much.” Not hanging out much involved a freshman year make out and a senior year hook up, but those weren’t details you generally shared with parental figures. “Then we ran into each other again in the city.”  

“Mighty coincidence,” Niall said. 

“Or luck,” Adam said. 

In other company, among friends they were at ease with, Ronan would’ve made a lewd joke about the exact nature of said getting lucky. 

Niall reached out and drew the car’s antea back like a bowstring. “I also hear that you may…” When he released it, it twanged in the air. “Know some family secrets.” 

“Fuck, Dad,” Ronan said. “We were having a nice conversation.” 

The proper appreciation Adam should have felt about the irony of Ronan lamenting the end of the nice conversation was lost in the tension of the moment. 

Niall leaned back on his heels in a way that was casual but also casually made him taller. “You said this was a serious relationship, so I’m having a serious conversation.”

Adam wished he had his hands on a toolbox. This whole thing would be a lot easier if he could be working on the guts of the car at the same time. So his head wasn’t over thinking the words. So that he was in his comfort zone. 

The car was a thing he could fix; this family wasn’t. 

“I know what Ronan wants me to know,” Adam said. “And he knows all my secrets too.” 

“Your secrets,” Niall said, like he didn’t think very much of whatever Adam held private. 

“Dad --” Ronan said, like a snake about to strike. Out of habit, Adam reached out beside him. Without looking he touched the back of Ronan’s hanging wrist with his fingertips. It was a message, ‘I’m fine’ and a request ‘Hold back.’ 

“I realize this is something you don’t understand,” Niall said. “But family is something I prioritize.” 

Ronan was boiling beside him. He often felt Adam’s anger for him. It wasn’t that Adam couldn’t feel anger, but that he didn’t let himself feel it, swim in it, or act on it. He was too afraid of becoming his father. In times like this, he made himself cold instead. 

“If I tell you why I don’t talk to my parents… And trust me, it’s a good reason. A reason a family man like you would even think was justified. If I told you, would you give me the damn benefit of the doubt? Or would you just find another reason not to like me?” 

Adam Parrish knew all about what it was like to be unliked for unfair reasons. For being poor. For having a hick accent. For being bi. Some people’s minds you could change if you proved yourself long enough. Some people you couldn’t. But one thing Adam or anyone in his situation could always do was cut through the bullshit and call it as it was. 

“It’s my job to protect my family.” So Niall was holding his line. 

Adam heard something guttural build up in Ronan’s throat. He was done holding back at Adam’s request. 

“Then protect it the way you do with all of Declan’s girlfriends,” Ronan snapped. “Hire a private investigator and be nice to his face.” 

“Ronan --”

“No.” Because Ronan wasn’t going to be silenced this time. “I’m not fucking doing this anymore. Fuck this. And fuck you.” 

 

#

 

When his warring thoughts became too much, Ronan went wordless. It was why he had his art. He didn’t need words for that. 

“You in there?” Adam asked. 

The pair of them was sitting in the hayloft hideaway that Declan had recommended in jest a few days ago. The straw was itchy, but surprisingly good at keeping them warm against the winter. 

Ronan grunted.

Adam laid his head on Ronan’s shoulder.

Ronan said, “Is it bad that I’m fucking relieved?”

“No. Though your dad’s going to hate me forever now.” 

“You?”

“Getting his golden son to rebel.”  
“I’ve been rebelling for a long fucking time.”

Ronan tugged on Adam’s arm, and Adam went with him, laying back onto the hay, cuddled close.  

“I just…” Adam felt a sneeze rising up behind his eyes, so he just said it. “I just wanted your family to like me. I wanted  _ a _ family to like me.” 

Ronan nosed at his jaw, wordless. Adam had just admitted his secret thing. The anxiety he had been trying to press down as lesser. Ronan had needed him to be there for him this week, and now Adam had messed up and flipped the stage, needing this comfort instead. 

He blinked. The hay was making his eyes itchy. 

“Yeah,” Ronan said. “I want my family to like me too.” 

 

#

 

They only came back inside the house proper when the cold of after sunset infected the barn so deeply that they couldn’t stand to stay. 

Declan, the first to see them inside, snorted and said, “Roll in the hay?”  
Adam plucked a piece of straw out of his hair. 

“Thank God you came in before Mom sent me out to search the twenty shit-ton barns to get you. Dinner’s in fifteen. Ten now, I guess. And don’t panic. Dad’s gone.” 

“Dad’s gone?” Ronan repeated. 

“Business,” Declan said. 

“Business… On Christmas.”

Declan held up his hands in defeat. This wasn’t his fight and he claimed to have no more answers. “Or it was a good excuse… I’ve never seen my father run out of his own house before. You must be tougher than I would’ve guessed, Adam.” 

He said it with no accusation, only mirth. Still, Adam felt his stomach sink regardless. He really was messing this whole visit up. 

When they go up to Ronan’s room to clean up before dinner, Adam asked, “Did I ruin Christmas?”

“No,” Ronan said. “It was a fucking team effort.” 

Adam plucked at the drawstring on his pants. “We’re still wearing pajamas.” From Christmas morning, and their lazy and then hidden daytime. It made him laugh. 

Ronan smiled briefly enough that Adam saw an incisor before it was gone. “Let’s getting fucking dressed and started this day out right.” 

Downstairs, they prayed and they ate, and halfway through -- reminiscent of the first night at the Lynch house -- Niall appeared. Instead of joining, complete with a grand introduction, he hesitated for just a second in the doorway between the dining room and the hallway. Then he went on. The door to his study slammed. 

“Maybe you should go talk to him,” Aurora said to Ronan. 

“No,” Ronan said, though his gaze was stuck to where Niall had passed. 

“Ronan.”

“It doesn’t work, Mom. You can only talk to him when he gets to hear what he wants to hear.” 

That was the problem with big personalities when they were your family. Because when you’re a kid, it’s awesome. They’re a superhero, a mythological figure, the omniscient narrator, and they’re your dad. Then you grow up, and see the seams and the lies. You grow up and that big personality is too big. It doesn’t leave room for you, or for the shape and size you need to be.  

“But if you --”

Ronan slammed down his fork. The room went quiet. Even Matthew, who was usually pleasantly oblivious to family tension. 

“If I what? Apologize? Fuck that.”

“Don’t talk to Mom like that,” Declan scolded from across the table. 

And so Ronan’s anger shifted. “Fuck you too, Declan. Not all of us can be perfect and fake like --”

“Stop fighting!” Matthew yelled from the end of the table. “It’s Christmas.” And Ronan stopped. His gaze skated very quickly to Matthew, to his mother, to Adam. 

“Fuck,” Ronan said again, so quietly that probably only Adam heard from sitting right next to him. He stood, chair screeching back. And he left, the room, the house, the front door slamming on the way out. 

The room was without air. Adam felt numb or something. The day had already been so high and low with emotions and now he was burned out on knowing what to feel. 

Aurora cleared her throat. “Everyone… Please… Keep eating.” It was clear from her tone, from her stiff mouth, that her easy composure was slipping. 

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Matthew said. “Can I be excused?” 

Aurora said, “Go ahead, honey.” 

Matthew left. 

Declan leaned his forehead on his palm like trying to hold in a headache. “Mom, I’ll clean up dinner.” 

“I’ll help,” Adam volunteered. 

She nodded with a fleeting grin to each of them, then got up and left like a ghost. 

So was left Adam and Declan, sitting across the short side of the dining table from each other in silence. 

“I hope he’s not driving,” Adam said, because he knew how Ronan liked a drive for his nerves. 

“He’s not,” Declan said. “He’s hiding. Lot of good places to hide around here. He’ll show up when he’s ready.” 

Adam had to wonder: Ready for what?

Without speaking, both got up and began clearing the table. 

“I’ll wash, you dry?” Declan proposed, which Adam agreed to with a nodded. “I’m not perfect,” Declan said he turned on the sink. 

“I don’t think you are,” Adam replied. Not with any particular malice in mind. Just with his knowledge of human nature. 

They had worked in tandem through a pile of plates when Declan, arms still stuck into the suds, said, “Did you know that I was the first person Ronan came out too?”

Adam kept drying a plate that was already dry. “No.” 

Declan started scrubbing down the a particularly stubborn smudge of baked on grease from a baking ceramic. “I’m only a year and half older than Ronan. Was only a year ahead in school. None of that matters. I was the still the oldest. Still had… responsibilities.” 

Water splashed out of the sink. 

“So he came into my room, seventeen and freaked out. Told me that he thought he was gay.” Declan stilled. Just as Adam thought he might be gearing up to break something, accident or otherwise. 

“And I told him not to tell anyone else.” Declan tossed down the washcloth. 

“You want me to ask why,” Adam said. “I can tell you want me to ask why.” He wasn’t sure why Declan had chosen Adam to make his confession to. Maybe it was a Catholic thing. He wanted a third party to hear him out and pass judgement. 

Declan leaned up against the edge of the sink, the tail of his shirt wet from his sloppy work. “To protect him. From the world. From this goddamn family. Or protect this goddamn family from him.”

Declan wiped his damp hands on his pressed pants. He seemed so kept when Adam had met him a few days ago. Now it had all been wiped away. Disheveled. Rolled up sleeves. Wet pants. Wet shirt. Lack of composure. 

“Can’t make waves. We’ve all got our roles to play in Niall Lynch’s perfect Irish Catholic family. Ronan’s the --.” 

“Favorite. You’ve said,” Adam interrupted more sharp than he intended, but just as sharp as he felt. 

“I was… jealous of him growing up.” Declan spit out the words like it was the worse thing he could admit. Declan Lynch -- refined and successful -- jealous. “But it’s a bit of a curse, really. Being the favorite. Being the son after Niall Lynch’s heart. His acolyte. How can someone not fall short of that?” 

He ran a hand through his hair, messing himself up even more.  

“I should’ve said something better.” 

Adam hadn’t had a traditional coming out experience. Sure, he’s had to come out to people, but never people who had known him his whole life. Never people who had a lifetime of expectations for him. He didn’t have people to disappoint, or people to disappoint him. 

Adam said, “I don’t think I’m the one you really need to be telling this to.”

They finished the rest of the dishes without talking. And after the dishes were completed and cleaned and put away, they stood there longer, in vigil. Waiting. 

“Should we go look for him?” Adam broke the silence to ask. 

“We wouldn’t be able to find him unless he wanted to be found,” Declan replied, arms crossed and everything about his posture tight. 

It was almost like that question had done the trick when three minutes later the front door creaked open, and a moment after that Ronan appeared in the kitchen.

“Hey,” he said, a lot like he was embarrassed. 

Adam crossed the room and wrapped his arms around Ronan’s shoulders. “Hey,” he echoed, then stepped back to get a look at him. 

Ronan grinned faintly. A chagrin of a grin. His eyes were a little red. 

Looking over Adam’s shoulder to Declan, Ronan asked, “Everything good in here?” It was a question that asked a lot out of a little. 

Declan crossed the room, patted Ronan on shoulder, and said of Adam, “I like this guy.” Then he left. 

Alone, Adam asked, “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Ronan said. “This is all fucking bullshit, but I’m fine.” 

Adam rubbed his arm with thumb. “That doesn’t sound fine.” 

“It’s acceptance. You know the fucking stages and shit? I’ve accepted that Dad’s never going to…” He doesn’t finish. “Bed. Let’s go to bed.”

“It’s only eight.” 

“Fuck.” There was the first waver in Ronan’s tone. “Day’s not done?” 

“Not yet.” 

Ronan gaze darted around the room like a desperate, trapped animal. 

“We don’t have to stay the whole fucking week,” he said. “We can leave early.” He was trying to put it in Adam’s lap, but Adam couldn’t make this decision.

“What do you want to do?” Adam asked. 

Ronan didn’t look at him. 

Adam placed a hand over that tight jaw. 

“Ronan,” he said. “You love your family.” 

Ronan blinked; it was as telling as a flinch. 

“You love your family.” 

Ronan crumbled. He squeezed his eyes shut against whatever storm was inside. He pressed his forehead into the crook of Adam’s neck. Adam ran a hand up his spine, another cupping the warm skin at the back of Ronan’s neck. Ronan was quiet. He could be loud and brash, but now he was quiet except for breaths that were harsh against his lungs. 

Between them where all the things unsaid. Ronan loved his family, even when he was angry at them. When they weren’t what he wanted, or remembered, or imagined them to be. He loved his family even when it didn’t seem they love him, not completely. He loved them, with all these contradictions, and it was okay even as much as it was painful. 

Neither of them knew, in this vulnerable moment, they were being seen. 

 

#

 

Adam couldn’t sleep. That was usually Ronan’s struggle, but sometimes Adam borrowed it. The idea of insomnia was laughable to a younger Adam Parrish. A younger Adam Parrish could never find enough sleep to end his weariness for sleep to evade him when he got the chance to snatch it. 

But it caught up with you eventually. Because it turned out the way you lived while you were living in the trauma, while you were in survival mode, wasn’t the way you would live for the rest of your life. And all that shit caught up with you and you had to deal with it. And sometimes that shit meant sleepless nights. 

Beside him Ronan was stiff as a board but sound asleep. Adam crept out of the bed. In the dark he navigated out of the room, down the hall, and down the stairs. He was headed to the kitchen. Maybe water or tea would make him feel better, or maybe it was just giving himself something to do and that something to do was making him feel better. 

The light was already on in the kitchen. Adam guessed he wasn’t surprised to find someone in there. And even more he wasn’t surprised that person was Niall Lynch.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Niall said upon Adam entering. 

“Nope.” Adam replied as he beelined to the cabinet. He opened one, closed it, opened another, found a glass, and went to the sink. 

“Want something stronger than water?” Niall had something stronger than water in the glass he was nursing. His words were just subtly slurred. 

“Nope,” Adam said. He was too tired and too many other things to be more polite. 

Niall, slouched on a stool at the island, made a subtle noise in the back of his throat. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “What you two have in common.” 

Adam jerked the faucet handle, turning it off. So, they weren’t sticking to small talk. 

“Because he drinks and I don’t?” 

“That. And other things.” 

Adam leaned against the counter. “I guess we seem contradictory. Artist. Engineer. Catholic. Atheist. Big family. No family… Stuff like that?”

“Sure,” Niall agreed and it was an edged word. “Stuff like that.” 

It was clear that he wasn’t accustomed to being so challenged in his own home. In that way he was similar to Adam’s father, who had this belief in himself as the man of the house, and that position demanded inherent respect. However, where Adam’s father hadn’t earned it, and instead was tyrant who ordered it through fear and rage and fists, Niall -- with all of his failing -- at least took care of his family. They had this house, feed bellies, and piles of gifts under the Christmas tree. Even more, through all his bitterness, Ronan had legend's worth of stories of growing up here, many of which that starred the vary figure sitting before Adam right now. 

No matter how angry Ronan got, it was never completely anger. It was layered with fondness and admiration and nostalgia. It wasn’t the stark contrast Adam felt with his past.  

Niall raised his glass in sarcastic salute. “What you two do have in common… You both hate me.” He drank to it. 

Adam took the time to sip his water. 

“Ronan’s told a lot of stories about growing up here,” he said. “About learning to drive at like twelve --”

“Thirteen,” Niall interrupted. “It was his thirteenth birthday.”  

“Thirteen,” Adam repeated. Niall knew because he had been the one to teach Ronan. “He’s said that was one of the happiest days in his life. If you think he hates you…” Adam shook his head. If he thought Ronan hated him, he didn’t get Ronan at all. 

“You care about him,” Niall said. 

Adam looked up at him, but Niall was only looking into his drink like their would be some sort of solution at the bottom of it. Niall had just stated this fact without any question or deliberation to it. There was some relief in Adam that he didn’t have to prove himself here.  

“I love him,” Adam said, because he wouldn’t let this admission go understated. “And I won’t hurt him.” 

Niall turned his glass on the table top, but didn’t lift it for another sip. “I did have a private investigator,” he said. “Got their report today. You’re clean… And you’re right. You do have a good reason for not talking to your parents.” 

Adam sucked in a breath. 

He could’ve dished out the truth at any time for sympathy points except that’s never what he wanted that. His past still felt more like a sin more than victory. 

“That’s not the way a father is supposed to treat his kid,” Niall said.   

Adam looked aside. With a clogged voice, he said, “I know.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll take that drink now.” 

Niall got up, retrieved a fresh glass from the cabinets, and poured out a finger of whatever he was drinking -- whiskey again? -- from a cut glass decanter. He handed the glass over to Adam. Adam took a swig. He gagged. 

“It’s worse than I thought,” he said, throat scored.  

“It’s an acquired taste,” Niall said. Then, with chagrin, “I acquired it when I was fourteen.” 

They were both quiet for a moment, standing there in the kitchen in the late hours of the dark that were neither night nor morning, the hours that didn’t feel completely real when you existed in them. For the first time since their short acquetiance they were not as sharp with each other. 

“With what Ronan and I can do,” Niall said, words plucked carefully. “There’s a lot of people who’d want to exploit that… Ronan doesn’t understand all the things I’ve had to do to protect him.”

Adam set his glass of liquor on the counter. “I’m not going to finish this,” he admitted. He hadn’t taken a second taste. 

“I will,” Niall said. “It’s a night for drinking.” 

Adam picked up the water glass he had come here for. It was late and he was tired if sleepless, and part of him doubted if this encounter was real. Maybe he was in a dreamworld for once. 

It was that sliver of possibility of unreality that made him brave enough to say what he said next. 

“The thing about my parents is that they never even tried. To apologize. To do better. Not once. They’d rather stand their ground and lose. It made it very easy for me to give up on them.... So maybe you really are trying to protect Ronan, Mr. Lynch, but right now the thing that’s hurting him the most is you.” 

 

#

 

“I can’t wait to wake up every morning with you.” Ronan pressed his forehead against Adam’s neck. “Like this.”

At some point last night, Adam snuck back into bed, his absence unnoticed. Between then and dawn, Ronan had gone from still to languid. He was now magnetically wrapped across Adam. 

“We already do,” Adam said. “Most mornings.” In hindsight, he should’ve seen the moving in together coming, considering the time and the nights and the clothes he already kept at Ronan’s. Of course, his brain had logic-ed up a practical answer: it was closer to work than his own place. Staying at Ronan’s was efficient. Nevermind, apparently, that he just liked being there more than other places. 

“But not every morning,” Ronan said. “Every morning and every night, like this…”

Adam dragged his fingers down the line of one of the tattooed feathers on Ronan’s upper arm. Ronan shivered, involuntary, at the touch. What a thought. Wanted, in someone’s bed, in someone’s arms, in someone’s home, every morning and every night. 

“Even if I’m sick?” Adam asked. “And sleeping next to me means getting covered in germs?”

“If you’re sick? Especially fucking then.” 

“What if you’re mad at me?” 

“Why would I be mad at you?” Ronan said in the tone of voice that meant his eyebrows were furrowed. 

“Because I’m human,” Adam said as he blinked at the ceiling where dawn light was growing in dominance. “And I make mistakes. And if we’re together every morning and ever night, I’m bound to make you mad at some point.” 

“I’ll fuck up too,” Ronan said. “I’ll make you mad too.” 

Adam tangled his fingers with Ronan’s. “Maybe we should promise. Right now. To share our bed even when we’re mad.”

“Promise,” Ronan said, like no discussion necessary. 

Adam liked Ronan all the time, but he like him in a special way when he just woke in the morning. When wasn’t worn out the way he was when going to bed. When was fresh and had not yet put on the weight of the day. When he could speak plainly, unscared of his wants or emotions. Perhaps that’s why Adam shouldn’t have been so surprised by what he said next.  

“We should leave today,” Ronan said. 

Adam held his breath as if he thought it would give something away, although he wasn’t sure what. 

“It’s what I want,” Ronan added on when Adam had added no commentary. Adam had been the one to turn the appeal of leaving onto Ronan’s desires just last night. 

But Adam found in his gut he didn’t want to leave. Not for his own sake, but for Ronan’s. It was like sharing your bed even when you were angry. 

“Let’s go visit the cows,” Adam said. “Before we decide.” 

#

 

“I’ll be back,” Ronan murmured to Shadow as he stroked down her nose. “At some point.” 

They were like his friends. Or pets. A real affection between human and animal. Feeling unwelcome at his old home, this was another thing Ronan had lost. 

They had crept out the house without anyone noticing. The day after Christmas had an absent, quiet morning. 

“I’ve been trying not to stress you out,” Adam said. “But you have to tell me what’s going on in your head.” 

“Fuck. I don’t know.” Ronan squeezed his eyes shut. “If I did I’d be a different goddamn person.” 

Adam leaned back against the wall. He watched Ronan in all his agonizing, and just gave him space. 

“We used to be close.” Ronan ran his hand against down Shadow’s nose. “Dad would work away from home a lot. Back before I even knew what that work was. When he came got… it was like goddamn Santa Claus walking in through the door.”

Ronan stepped back from the stable and stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, shoulders rucked up. It was a pose, that for all Ronan’s height, made him look small. 

“Did he he ever even fucking like  _ me?  _  Or did he just like that I was like him?” 

Because to be liked for something you weren’t, or for just percentage of who are, it isn’t enough. Because people just didn’t want to be liked; they wanted to be understood. 

Adam extended his hand. Ronan took it. Adam had said what he had needed to say at this place. Whatever Ronan had to say and needed to do when they got back inside, Adam would stand by him for it. 

 

#

 

When they got back inside, the house was awake. The kitchen was the heartbeat. Aurora laughing at something Matthew said as she flipped pancakes. Declan blinking blearily over a mug of coffee. 

Ronan released Adam’s hand at the doorway. 

“Hey, Mom,” he said. “Can I talk to you about something? In private?” He was going to apologize for last night. He was going to tell her that they were leaving early. 

Aurora handed off the spatula to Matthew, which may or may not have been a good idea, and left the room. 

Declan sucked in a deep breath through his nose. “Coffee?” he asked Adam. 

“Please,” Adam replied with the dreariness of coffee-drinkers early in the morning. 

The two of them sipped their drinks in silence and Matthew piled up lopsided pancakes as they waited for whatever came next.  

When Aurora and Ronan reentered the kitchen, it was with a pair of dampened spirits even as Aurora had her hand linked around Ronan’s arm like he was escorting her. Ronan was a good four inches taller than her. 

She was the one, Adam now remembered, that Ronan had said wanted him desperately to come home for Christmas. Now he was leaving early and she was the one suffering from the ill work of outside forces. Who know what she had said to her husband behind closed doors, but her only sin was not saying anything loud enough. Even so, she still might not of won. 

“Oh, Matthew,” she said when she saw what he was up to, and released Ronan to swoop in to save breakfast. Of course she could cook perfectly round and unburnt pancakes. 

“Coffee?” Declan offered his younger brother, pouring out a mug for him as he refilled his own. Ronan accepted after adding a ridiculous amount of sugar. 

“Remember when Christmas was fun?” he muttered. 

“Before you were born?” Declan countered. 

“Everyone fill up a plate and take it to the dining room,” Aurora announced. “Breakfast is served.” 

Ronan turned close to Adam. “Breakfast before we leave?” he said quiet. “And I still got to talk to Matthew.” Adam nodded for both. 

They were about to follow Aurora’s instructions when the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard coming down the from the floor above. The one missing piece of the Lynch family set. The king. 

“Pancakes are ready,” Aurora said when her husband entered the kitchen already she didn’t turn from the stove. 

“But the coffee’s already empty,” Declan added. 

Ronan’s jaw was tight. 

Niall Lynch could’ve done a lot of things in that moment. He could’ve started an argument. Like last night, he could’ve walked away. What Adam thought most likely was that Niall would walk into the room, confident and at ease, despite all the strife, and reclaim his rightful place, nothing changed. 

Niall did something else. Wordlessly, he crossed the room with a few sure strides and pulled Ronan into a hug. One hand cupped his the back of his head like one held a child. 

Ronan was stiff and then he wasn’t. 

“Oh, shit,” Declan said, under his breath and pure reaction. Adam felt those words to his gut. Later, Declan would explain, “I don’t think Dad’s hugged any of us since we were too big to carry to bed.” 

Adam wasn’t sure if any whispered words were exchanged between father and son within the embrace. He wasn’t sure if there had to be. Ronan Lynch, after all, always communicated in the language of actions than the language of words. 

They didn’t leave that day. There was too much time to be made up. There was too much work to be done. 

 

#

 

New Years Eve came, and tomorrow Adam and Ronan would be leaving to go back to their real life as per their original schedule. Declan had already left, not having as long as a stretch of vacation days as them. Before he left, he had pulled Ronan aside for a private talk. Ronan came back with red-rimmed eyes and when Adam asked him what had happened, he just said, “Just told me something said he should’ve told me a long time ago. Asshole.” 

Bundled up, they were all outside on the porch. Niall was setting up fireworks on the lawn while Matthew kept his eyes glued to a watch making sure they wouldn’t miss it. 

“Thirty seconds!” he yelled out. 

Aurora cheered. She was pink-faced; she had a lot of wine at dinner. 

“Dad!” Matthew yelled. “Get ready! Get ready!”

“Yeah, get ready!” Ronan yelled in godding follow up. 

“I’m ready,” Niall shouted back from the lawn. 

Adam laughed. “You guys are ridiculous.” 

Ronan pinched his side. 

“Ten!” Matthew shouted out, and they all joined in for the rest of countdown. As the conjoined screams of “Happy New Year!” filled the air, Niall set off the fireworks. They were fireworks that formed shapes -- sparks of butterflies, a rocketship -- and strange colors -- rainbows and ones that changed before your eyes. 

The fizzle wax and wane of lights illuminated the fierce and handsome angles of Ronan’s face. Ronan’s eyes flickered down to Adam’s mouth. Ronan’s squeezed a hand at Adam’s waist. Adam took the signal. He leaned into the New Years kiss.

A kiss, simple and sweet, and in plain view of the Lynch family. Whether they were paying attention did not matter because they weren’t trying to hide or perform. They were just trying to be. 

 

#

 

“You really think I should gut the whole engine and start from scratch?” Niall asked. 

“If you want it to run,” Adam replied. 

They were on the front porch, bag straps over their shoulders. They were saying their goodbyes, but they were the kind of goodbyes that lingered, traveling from one room to the next to outside as everyone remembered one more thing they needed to say before they forgot, one more question to ask, and one more goodbye on top of it. After all, the last goodbye said was ten minutes ago and that hardly counted now.

“Come back more often,” Aurora kept saying, in guilt like attempts at Ronan as he promised and she tried to squeeze more specific dates out of him. “In a month,” she said.

“We can’t come back in a month,” Ronan said. “We’ll be busy moving.” 

Adam’s heart thudded in his chest. God, he was going back to his real life today and that was really happening. 

Aurora squeezed Ronan in a hug and then came over to Adam to do just the same. Over her shoulder, he watched as Niall squeezed Ronan’s shoulder. 

“Tell me…” he cleared his throat. “Tell me next time you have a show. I should get up the city to see one.” 

Ronan, who had a certain cut of features and resting pissed off face that most assumed he was angry unless he displayed the over the top opposite, didn’t reveal much in his expression. Except that Adam knew him better than most people. Adam knew the significance of his wide-eyes, child-like, when he nodded and said, “Okay.” 

Adam wanted to grin and roll his eyes at the same time. All this back and forth, fights and progress, and it just capped off with an ever poetic  _ Okay. _

They left, finally, after another round of goodbyes. 

Ronan was quiet in the driver’s seat as they wound down the long driveaway. Only when they turned onto the main road, where officially off his family’s lot, did he say something. And what he said was, “So that’s my family.”

“They’re nice,” Adam said. 

“Don’t lie.”

Adam laughed. 

“I like them,” he said. And he meant it. Even balancing it out with all the passive aggressive bullshit that took up half the visit. “They’re not perfect. But… you know, they try.”

“To be fucking perfect?” 

“To be better.” Adam tugged the seat belt loose over his chest. “Not everyone has that.”

They drive a little father. Ronan said, “They’re okay.” 

Adam huffed. “Yeah. Just okay.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya. I hope everyone was satisfied with this conclusion. (Do you know how many times I rewrote that Adam and Niall scene?) I'm glad so many readers were willing to come along with me on my weird domestic drama AU that I just get out of my head and onto paper. Thanks for reading. Please share your thoughts in the comments. I love reading your reactions. 
> 
> If you want, come find on tumblr as ungoodgatsby. If you want to check out my original writing, check out my author website www.margerybayne.com. (Yep, I've written and published original short stories.)

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes. So, I've been working on this on and off for a few months. I built a whole headcanon of Ronan-with-Niall-not-dead and I have a lot of logic for it that was will be continued to be explored in future chapters. 
> 
> Thoughts? 
> 
> Comments give me life.


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